Pipers gets new look

January 3, 2012

JACKSONVILLE, IL – Work as a result of MacMurray College’s Highlander Points of Excellence fundraising campaign will be underway next week, and students will have a whole new place to eat when they return for the spring semester.

On Jan. 4, a contractor will begin installing new tables, chairs and create a new look for Piper’s, the café in the Gamble Campus Center on campus. The $35,000 upgrade will result in a coffee-house décor when students return from mid-term break on Jan. 9. Photographers and reporters are welcome to stop by Piper’s in the afternoon, while the work is being done.

The Piper’s renovation is only one of more than several dozen projects in The Highlander Points of Excellence, a fundraising campaign driven by the MacMurray College Board of Trustees. A board member presented the board a $200,000 matching-grant challenge. More than half of the money for the $1.2 million campaign has been pledged by the Trustees, and the College has begun work on the nearly 30 projects designed to improve student life at the College and boost academic excellence.

Many of the projects were submitted by faculty and staff in a competitive solicitation of projects.

Among the first group of projects is in the public areas of the student center, which is in the midst of a $100,000-plus renovation, including the work on Piper’s. Among the other projects are:

Instructional technology for the Nursing Department in MacMurray Hall

Conversion of a classroom into an art critique room in the Springer Building

Wireless scoreboard for the soccer and baseball fields

Creation of a video/multi-media lab at the Henry Pfeiffer Library.

Creation of a psychology lab in MacMurray Hall

Renovation of four residence-hall lounges

Faculty & staff participation at professional development conferences.

In addition, the Highlander Points of Excellence Campaign will provide a variety of less visible projects to improve the operations of the College, such as an upgrade to its central information system and other such infrastructure improvements.